


You Win Some, Lose Some

by Sarcadae



Series: Playing For The High One, Dancing With The Devil [1]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Around the time of Roger's execution and the hunt for his child, Blind Character, Gen, How Do I Tag, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Minor Character Death, My First Fanfic, No Beta, Observation Haki (One Piece), Original Character-centric, Set Before Canon, for now, send help
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-08
Updated: 2020-10-08
Packaged: 2021-03-07 15:48:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26900119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sarcadae/pseuds/Sarcadae
Summary: Every story needs a starting point.For Kary, her story started that day.
Series: Playing For The High One, Dancing With The Devil [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1962772
Kudos: 3





	You Win Some, Lose Some

**Author's Note:**

> Hi !
> 
> I have no idea how to do this, and I finally gathered my courage to post it, so just...enjoy ?
> 
> This work is set before the start of Luffy's adventures, around the time Gol D. Roger was executed and the Marines' hunt for his child. I always figured the Marines couldn't have just gone to Baterilla, they propably searched other islands for Rouge and Ace, and thus, this fic was born !
> 
> This is my first work in English, so I apologized for every mistakes you may find. I've proof read it as many times as I could, but you never know.

She could remember the sun over her home island in the South Blue, hot and reassuring. She could remember the song of the birds, bright and cheerful. She could remember the feeling of grass under her feet, soft and a little damp in the mornings. She could remember the scent of baked goods, a lot of different smells that made her mouth water. She could remember the taste of fruits, a little sweet on her tongue and always juicy. 

She doesn't remember the sky over her home island. She doesn’t remember what kind of birds sang atop the trees. She doesn’t remember how the grass looked like. She doesn’t remember what were the shapes of the baked goods. She doesn’t remember the colors of the fruits she ate. 

For as long as she could remember, Kary only ever saw black.

* * *

At first, she couldn’t understand why she only saw black. Her mother left her on the island, taking off on the first ship that moored in the port. (She doesn’t know who her father is, if he’s alive somewhere, if he even knows he has a daughter. She tries not to think about it too often.) She had no one to tell her what was happening. Some villagers tried taking care of her, and it was good, at first. They gave her a place where she could feel safe, cared for, _loved_. But as she grew, they started whispering. 

_“Why is she always starring like that ?”_

_“She never looks at us when we talk to her, what a disrespectful little girl.”_

_“She’ll never find a good husband like this.”_

_“She can’t even walk straight. Always bumping into things and making a mess.”_

Maybe she can’t see, but she can still hear them. Kary tries not to let them get to her head. It’s hard the first few years, hearing the people who cared for her before saying those things about her. She cried more than once, alone, sitting at the edge of the cliff overlooking the sea. It was the only place on the island where she could truly breathe. Maybe it was because her mother was on a ship for most of her pregnancy, or maybe because the sound of the waves helped calm her. The sea was her friend. ( ~~Her only friend.~~ )

(Nobody comes looking for her when she goes into the woods to go to her special place. They don’t care for her anymore.) 

( _It hurts._ )

* * *

Kary is eight when it happens. 

She’s been exploring the woods, little by little. She leaves early in the morning, before her caretaker is awake, with a little bag full of water canteens and sandwiches for her lunch, and heads straight to the line of trees at the edge of the town. Not a lot of people go in there, only a few hunters when they want to catch some animals. She always ties a cord to one of the trees before going in deeper. It helps her finding her way back to town (not seeing anything has taught her a lot of things, but especially _don’t go anywhere new before you find some way to not get lost_ ) because if she’s lost, no one will come looking for her. 

(They stopped caring a long time ago. She doesn’t cry about it anymore.) 

( _It still hurts._ ) 

She’s so deep in the woods, deeper than she’s ever been before. The sun is beating down on her, and she takes regular water breaks, because she can’t afford to pass out. She keeps going for a little while until she hears water ahead. Kary’s a little surprised, honestly. She can’t have reached the cliff, because it’s on the other side from where she started, and she’s pretty sure she’s not near the beach either (she would have smelled her). She walks to where the sound is getting stronger, almost deafening her because it’s that loud, like being in the middle of a thunderstorm, and suddenly her foot gives out under her. She tumbles into cold water, so disoriented she can’t tell up from down (not like she can on a regular basis) until her head breaches the surface. She gasps for air, thrashing her arms at her side to try and swim and get out because _she can’t swim-_

Her hand touches grass and she grasps it, grasps it so hard her fingers dug into the earth, and it’s still a few minutes before she can heave herself out of the water, and she lays there on her back, arms spread wide and feet still in the water. Kary’s silent for a few seconds and then she _laughs_. She laughs louder than she ever has, because she almost drowned, but it’s the most _fun_ she’s ever had. 

(And isn’t that a little concerning ?) 

She laughs so much it sends her in a coughing fit, and she has to turn on her side to avoid choking herself. She stays sprawled on the ground until she can breathe normally again, and then she goes back to her feet. Kary concentrates on what she’s hearing to try and make out what is surrounding her. She can’t hear much over the roar of the waterfall, but maybe that’s a good thing. She always had a keen hearing and it’s a blessing, sometimes, because she can hear where people are around her, can hear the gossip and little secrets that nobody wants to have repeated. But it’s also a curse when all she can hear is people talking about her, how she won’t do much in life, how _useless_ she is because of her disability. 

(She knows this already. She knows she can’t do much in the day-to-day life. Not being able to see is a nightmare for Kary, and as much as she ignores the whispers and hushed conversations, it still hurts. She doesn’t know what she will do with her life, if she will get a job somewhere, if she will meet a man who will protect and cherish her, who she will fund a family with. If she will have children, hopefully none blind like her, and if she will be proud of who they become. If she will have a good life before she closes her eyes for the last time.) 

(Kary knows none of those things will happen to her. She’s too broken for that life.) 

She tries for the rest of the day to map out her surroundings in her head. She walks slowly around the edge of the little lake without toppling in the water again. She takes a break when she hears the bell from the church ring and eats her lunch. Then she’s right back on her feet and walking around. She finds rocks near the waterfall covered in what she guesses is moss, and a few fallen trunks near the tree border. Kary is so focused on her task that she startles when she hears voices in the forest. 

It’s a big group, maybe a dozen or a little more, and they’re loud. There are shouted orders to “keep walking and don’t talk” in male voices, and she can hear a few female voices she recognizes as women from her town asking where they are taking them. Kary walks slowly to the trees, flattening herself against a tree trunk to try and hear better. She doesn’t recognize the male voices, rough and hard, and she frowns when she hears swords clinking. No one on her island owns swords, and it’s only because she likes to seat near the blacksmith’s workshop that she knows those sounds. Whoever these people are, they’re not from around here. 

Kary has to get a bit closer to them to hear better, and by the time she stops, the group is in a clearing she discovered a week ago. It’s big and further into the jungle than the lake she just found. She can barely hear the sounds from the town here, which means no one there will hear what’s going on here. 

The women are still asking what’s going on, and now she can hear a few children voices too, even a baby crying. She’s confused because this doesn’t make any sense. Why would outsiders bring mothers and their children in the middle of the forest ? What’s the purpose ? Apart from a few fruits, they won’t find anything in this part of the forest, the animals they hunt are located on the other side of the island. And why would they bring women with them ? And children ?? _It doesn’t make any sense !_

Kary is startled from her thoughts when she hears gunshots. She doesn’t have the time to understand what they are shooting at before she hears people screaming. 

Her breath is stuck in her lungs and her eyes are wide open. She _knows_ those voices, it’s the voices of women who talked about her in hushed whispers, and the kids are some who always run around the streets, nearly crashing into her if they don’t pay attention and now, they’re screaming. They’re screaming and hurting and it’s a sound she never wanted to hear because there’s so much pain and anguish in those voices and- 

She ducks behind the tree she was leaning against and hides her face in her knees, her hands over her ears. It doesn’t really help because she can still hear them, can still hear the screams and the pain and she swears she can feel them dying, like a breeze suddenly gone. It’s weird and she’s freaking out, her breathing stuttering in her chest and there’s tears running down her face. There are more people dying, the women and _the kids and the babies all dying_ in that clearing not far from her and she can’t do anything about it aside crying and trying to block everything out because _it’s too much for her and she can’t breathe !_

A whimper escapes her as the last person dies ( ~~a child no older than two~~ ) and the sudden silence is deafening. The sudden calm in the forest somehow feels more deafening than the gunshots, than the waterfall a few feet from her. She doesn’t hear the rush of the water anymore, only her labored breathing making its way to her ears. Every death keeps replaying in her mind, like a whirlwind of voices screaming only to be snuffed out. She doesn’t understand what just happened, or why it happened at all. She just knows one thing : she will never forget. 

In her distressed state, she can feel something tugging at her waist. It startles her out of her mind and she’s confused. It happens again, stronger this time, and she realizes with a jolt that someone is tugging on the cord she has wrapped around her waist. It sends another wave of panic through her, and she scrambles hastily to unfasten the cord. The knots have barely come undone before she pushes to her feet and she bolts forward, away from the sound of the waterfall. (And most importantly, _away from the dead and those who did this._ ) 

She’s running through the trees, but Kary can still hear the voices, almost as if they were in front of her. They’re talking among themselves near the tree she attached her cord at. 

(She shouldn’t be able to hear them at all, they’re too far from her, and she’s still running like a pack of wolves was chasing her.) 

“What do we do about this, Vice-Admiral Onigumo ?” a voice asks. It feels young, but they don’t feel shocked or remorseful about what they did. 

(How can she even know that ?) 

“It’s probably for hunters, a life-line of some kind.” Another voice says, gruff and harsh. It sends shivers down her spine and goosebumps on her arms. “Leave it, we need to get back to the ship. I need to report to Marineford about the success of our mission.” 

“Yes sir !” A lot of voices answer, and then they’re moving away from the forest and towards the town. 

She doesn’t know how she did this, how she heard everything they said like she was standing next to them. But right now, she doesn’t care. She just wants to get as far away as she can. 

(Kary knows, in the back of her mind, where panic and fear haven’t managed to anchor themselves and settle, that she has little chances of coming out of the forest alive. She cut off her guide and there’s no way she will come back to the town on her own. Besides, she doesn’t have any food on her, and what little water she still has won’t keep her alive for long.) 

(She doesn’t want to die here. But she was never going to truly live either.)

* * *

Maybe she was exaggerating a little. 

Kary comes across a familiar path of trees, somewhere she spent a lot of time and knows the layout in her head. The panic has receded to the very back of her mind, but she has a feeling it will come back with a vengeance once she’s locked herself inside her room. It’s fine, she can break down there all she wants, and maybe never come out of there too. She just wants to get out of the woods and never go there again. 

(She’s pretty sure she’s been hearing weird voices ever since the gunshots happened. She can hear the animals all around her, some farther away than others. She can also hear voices near the town. She can almost pick up on conversations if she tries really hard. It’s kind of frightening her.) 

She doesn’t know how long she spent in the woods. She’s pretty sure the sun has set already, because she can hear owls high up in the trees. By the time she reaches the border of the forest, she’s shivering because of the cold (or maybe it’s shock ?) and ready to fall asleep where she stands. She works on autopilot to walk towards the house. 

The closer she gets to her destination, the warmer she feels. It takes her some time to realize there is a fire nearby. People are scrambling to put it out, voices shouting for water, other voices demanding what the soldiers did with the women and kids they brought inside the forest. 

(There are other voices who are screaming with anguish and pain and resignation, but they’re not. Those voices aren’t ones she can hear, it’s more like she just knows. She still doesn’t understand, and the panic is still there inside of her.) 

When she finally closes the door of her bedroom behind her, Kary falls on her bed and cries herself to sleep. She doesn’t know what will happen tomorrow, what she will do, but for now, it doesn’t matter to her. She can feel herself falling into unconsciousness, something she is very grateful for. The voices have finally quieted down, and she can finally rest.

* * *

The townspeople talk about that day a lot. The don’t know what happened, only found the corpses in the woods, all with bullet wounds. They were buried in the cemetery, and the island has been mourning them ever since. Kary doesn’t know what to feel, because she knows what happened to them, witnessed it even if she can’t see, but she doesn’t speak. No one will believe her anyway. 

(She caught a conversation between the mayor and some of the older villagers. Something about the Marines and the Pirate King, even if she doesn’t know what that means. But that means some of the villagers know what happened.) 

So, she keeps her mouth shut, rarely leaves her room, and tries not to go crazy because she can still hear voices as clear as if she was next to the people talking. 

The fire she felt was one of the warehouses in the harbor burning down. A parting gift from the Marines, a warning to never talk about what happened that day, or else. 

She doesn’t want to see what will happen if someone does talk about it.

* * *

Kary is eight when she grabs all of her prized possessions (a necklace with a diamond shaped pendant she always had on her according to her caretaker, a book she brought from a merchant with weird cravings she can feel when she runs her hand on the pages, her favorite jacket, all inside her little backpack) and sneaks onto a ship anchored further away at the harbor. 

She still hears the voices being snuffed out, the screams and the pleas, the endless list of questions that will forever remain unanswered. She can’t take it anymore. So she flees. 

(And if she is a coward for doing this, well. She’s just a child.)

**Author's Note:**

> So, what do you think ?
> 
> There will be more to come, but I don't know when I'll post them. I haven't even written them, I just have some ideas (x
> 
> If you wanna scream at me about One Piece, you can find me on [Tumblr](https://funk-jungle.tumblr.com/) !


End file.
